Immersive Arcade highlights two decades of UK immersive content

Digital Catapult announced the launch of the Immersive Arcade, a website that celebrates twenty years of UK immersive content by showcasing to the world the most innovative content the United Kingdom has produced though the last two decades. Partnering with the Audience of the Future Challenge and launched during BEYOND 2020, the website highlights a timeline of ingenious works that incorporated virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and/or mixed reality (MR) content.

The Immersive Arcade programme and website is now closed for further information please email [email protected] 

The website showcases many early renditions of innovations that are more common today, from 100-player games and simulated training environments for Naval officers, to the VR slide that swerves down London’s Shard. It also features bonus content that users can find on each of the experience pages highlighting interesting facts relating to that production. The Immersive Timeline showcases the best UK immersive content to the whole world, allowing visitors to scroll through history and appreciate the great works that have come out of this country.

The website is the first of two stages which will make up the Immersive Arcade experience. The second production will be the Immersive Showcase, a free VR platform where users can visit and interact with a selection of VR works. Profiling VR and 360-degree content from the last twenty years, the VR platform will show experiences across video games, simulators, and art galleries. Where the Immersive Timeline presents the history of immersive content, the Immersive Showcase gives users the opportunity to try some of the experiences out for themselves. The VR platform will be launched in 2021, for anyone in the world to access.

In addition, Digital Catapult invites content creators to submit their compatible creations to the platform. All submissions will have the chance to be featured in the ‘Hall of Fame of UK immersive content 2000-2020’, chosen by an appointed curatorial panel. The Hall of Fame presents an opportunity for creatives to immortalise their works as a part of UK immersive history.

Andrew Chitty, Director of the Audience of the Future Challenge said, “From innovative location-based experiences to world-class training simulators harnessing the latest XR technologies, the UK has consistently pioneered immersive content productions for the last two decades. UKRI is proud to launch Immersive Arcade, a project which will provide public access to and engagement with some of the most dynamic and influential interactive works from UK creators since 2000.”

Jeremy Silver, CEO, Digital Catapult said, “Digital Catapult is a long-standing advocate of the power of immersive technologies to create a fundamental shift in how we work and play, and we are very proud to have been so closely involved in the extraordinary growth of many immersive companies over the years. The Immersive Timeline and Immersive Showcase both aim to demonstrate the breadth and depth of the UK’s ground-breaking innovations in the area, profiling the far-sighted experiences that made an impact over the last two decades.’’

The Immersive Timeline is available on any web browser, and the Immersive Showcase is available to anyone with a PC-VR headset (Oculus Rift; Oculus Rift S; HTC Vive, Oculus Quest / 2 via a Link cable).

The Immersive Arcade programme and website is now closed for further information please email [email protected]